California Civil Code § 1950.5: The Full Security Deposit Law

Most pages about California security deposits are written for someone asking how do I get my money back. This one is written for the other search — the one where you type the section number itself, because a landlord, a property manager or a lease has cited Civil Code § 1950.5 at you and you want to know exactly what it says.

So this is the statute, subdivision by subdivision, in plain English, with the deadlines and dollar figures pulled to the front. If you want the procedural walkthrough instead, that lives in Recovering a California security deposit — this page is the reference the walkthrough leans on.

One thing worth saying before the detail: § 1950.5 is unusually generous to tenants compared with most states, and unusually specific. It does not merely say deposits must be returned “promptly” or “reasonably”. It sets a hard number of days, an itemisation requirement, a documentation requirement with its own dollar threshold, an inspection right, and a penalty with a multiplier. Almost every advantage in a California deposit dispute comes from the fact that the legislature wrote the details down.

The section at a glance

Subdivision (c): the cap, and the exception people get wrong

Since 1 July 2024, when AB 12 took effect, the ceiling has been one month’s rent in addition to the first month’s rent — and critically, it is the same figure whether the unit is furnished or unfurnished. The old regime, which allowed two months for unfurnished and three for furnished, is gone.

The exception is real but narrow, and it is worth reading slowly because it is the part most often misdescribed. It applies where the landlord is a natural person, or a limited liability company all of whose members are natural persons, and that landlord owns no more than two residential rental properties, which collectively contain no more than four dwelling units offered for rent. Meet every element and the cap is two months’ rent.

Miss any one of them and it is not available. A corporate landlord does not qualify however small it is. An owner of three duplexes does not qualify, because three properties exceeds two. An owner of one eight-unit building does not qualify, because eight units exceeds four. If you paid two months’ rent to a landlord who does not fit that description for a tenancy starting after 1 July 2024, the excess was collected in breach of subdivision (c).

There is also a separate service-member provision in the same subdivision, and a rule permitting six months’ rent to be paid in advance where the lease term is six months or longer — that advance rent is a different thing from security and should not be conflated with it.

Subdivision (e): the four permitted uses, and the wear-and-tear line

A deposit may only be applied to:

1. Unpaid rent.
2. Repair of damage caused by the tenant or their guests, excluding ordinary wear and tear.
3. Cleaning to return the unit to the level of cleanliness it had at the start of the tenancy.
4. Restoring or replacing personal property, where the rental agreement allows it.

Two limits inside that list do most of the work in real disputes.

The first is ordinary wear and tear, which is excluded by the text itself. Wear and tear is what happens to a dwelling that is simply lived in: paint dulls, carpet flattens along walked lines, finishes fade, small nail holes appear, hinges loosen. None of that is chargeable, no matter how much the landlord spent putting it right. Damage is different in kind, not merely in degree — a burn, a pet stain soaked through to the underlay, a cracked pane, a hole punched in plasterboard.

The second is the cleanliness benchmark. The standard is not “professionally cleaned”, not “spotless”, and not whatever the lease says. It is the level of cleanliness the unit had when you moved in. A landlord who hands over a unit in average condition and deducts for a deep clean at move-out is charging you to improve the property, which subdivision (e) does not permit. This is also why move-in photographs matter far more than most tenants realise: they establish the benchmark that the whole cleaning deduction is measured against.

Subdivision (e) also bars deductions for pre-existing damage — anything that was already there when you arrived.

Subdivision (f): the inspection almost nobody uses

This is the most underused right in the section.

Before the tenancy ends, the landlord must notify you of your option to request an initial inspection, and to be present at it. The notification must come at a reasonable time, and no earlier than two weeks before the termination date. If you request the inspection, the landlord must give at least 48 hours’ prior written notice of the time and date, unless you both agree in writing to waive it.

Then comes the part that makes it valuable. After inspecting, the landlord must give you an itemized statement of the repairs and cleanings they propose to deduct — before you leave. That gives you the chance to do the work yourself, at your own cost and on your own terms, and remove those items from the final accounting entirely.

The practical effect is that a $600 cleaning deduction can become a Saturday afternoon with a carpet cleaner. Requesting the inspection costs nothing and converts a surprise into a to-do list.

Subdivision (h): 21 days, itemisation, and the $125 threshold

No later than 21 calendar days after the tenant has vacated, the landlord must furnish a copy of an itemized statement and return the remaining deposit.

Take the deadline literally. They are calendar days, so weekends and public holidays are inside the count, and the statute provides no extension where day 21 falls awkwardly. The clock runs from the tenant vacating — from the return of possession, not from the paper end date of the lease and not from whenever the landlord got round to inspecting.

The statement must identify the basis and the amount of each deduction. It is not enough to write a single figure, and it is not enough to write “cleaning” or “repairs” with a number beside it.

The landlord must also attach documents: copies of bills, invoices or receipts for the work. Where the landlord’s own employees did the work, the statement must reasonably describe the work and the time spent on it. Where a third party has been engaged but not yet billed, the statute allows a good-faith estimate, with the actual documentation to follow.

Then the threshold. If the total deductions are $125 or less, the landlord does not have to supply that documentation — unless the tenant requests it. And the request has a deadline of its own: 14 days from receiving the itemized statement. This is a small, specific, easily missed window, and it is the reason to read a small deduction on the day it arrives rather than the week after.

Subdivision (g): the photographs, phased in

AB 2801 added a photographic record to the section in stages:

• From 1 April 2025, the landlord must take photographs of the unit within a reasonable time after possession is returned, and again after any repairs or cleanings are completed.
• For tenancies beginning on or after 1 July 2025, the landlord must also photograph the unit at the start of the tenancy.

This cuts both ways, and on balance it favours tenants: it creates a documentary record of condition that a landlord is obliged to produce, in a dispute that used to turn on competing recollections.

Subdivision (m): the multiplier

Where a landlord retains the deposit in bad faith, or in bad faith demands a replacement deposit, they are liable for statutory damages of up to twice the amount of the security, in addition to actual damages.

Three points about how this actually works.

It is discretionary, not automatic — the words are “up to”. A judge who concludes the landlord genuinely overestimated the cost of a repair may award nothing under (m) while still ordering the money returned.

It is on top of, not instead of, the deposit itself. A $2,400 deposit wrongly withheld in bad faith exposes the landlord to $2,400 in actual damages plus up to $4,800 in statutory damages.

And it must be asked for. Judges do not award penalties that were not claimed. If you are filing in small claims, state in the claim itself that you seek statutory damages under Civil Code § 1950.5(m).

Bad faith usually has to be shown rather than asserted. Blowing through the 21-day deadline entirely, inventing damage, refusing to itemise after a written request, or deducting for the same repair twice are the fact patterns that support it.

Subdivision (n): “nonrefundable” means nothing

A lease may not characterise any security as nonrefundable. A nonrefundable cleaning fee, a nonrefundable pet deposit, a nonrefundable move-in fee held against damage — if the sum was collected as security against rent, damage or cleaning, § 1950.5 governs it and the label does not survive contact with the statute.

What matters is the function of the payment, not the noun the lease uses for it.

What changed in 2026

AB 414, signed on 6 October 2025, modernised how the money and the paperwork travel.

Where the landlord received the deposit or rent payments electronically, the remaining deposit must be returned electronically, to an account the tenant designates in writing or by another electronic method both parties agree to. The days of an electronic-everything tenancy ending in a paper cheque posted to an address you no longer live at are over.

The itemized statement may be furnished by email to an account the tenant provides, where both sides agree, or by first-class mail to an address the tenant provides.

And where there are multiple adult tenants, the landlord and the residents may enter a mutual written agreement — at the start of the tenancy, during it, or after it ends — setting out how the deposit will be returned and how statements will be delivered. That matters in a shared house, where the alternative is an argument about who receives a single cheque.

The 21-day deadline, the cap, the permitted deductions and the bad-faith penalty are all unchanged.

Using the section in a dispute

The most effective deposit letters do one thing consistently: they tie each disputed line item to the specific subdivision it fails under. “The $1,150 repainting charge is a deduction for ordinary wear and tear, which § 1950.5(e) excludes” is an argument. “I don’t think that’s fair” is a feeling. Only one of them changes what a property manager does next.

If it reaches small claims, bring the lease, move-in and move-out photographs, the itemized statement, your written demand and proof of delivery — and claim the subdivision (m) damages expressly.

Related reading: Recovering a California security deposit for the step-by-step process, and California rent increases under AB 1482 if the deposit dispute arrived alongside a rent rise.

This page summarises Civil Code § 1950.5 as it stands in August 2026 and links to the official text at every point. It is general information, not legal advice for your situation. Verify the current text before relying on it, and consult a California tenant attorney where the amounts justify it.